Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Something I am thinking about... or maybe playing with

I have an Underwood Typewriter (courtesy of my children, who are great gift buyers!)  and I have been playing about with when to use it to create text.

Transfers using tape ... where the clear tape is placed on a printed image and later the backing paper is washed away leaving the ink on the tape ... is one of the things I love to do.  I have used it here, and here and here in my GWBridge book with different effects.  The cover uses clear contact paper, but since making that I have gotten some 6 inch wide tape, so I have been using that.

However, to do this, you have to use laser or carbon based ink images.  Copier machine images will work, but Ink Jet images won't work since the water washes the ink away.  I only have an inkjet printer here, but my local UPS store... I LOVE THOSE GUYS... help me out.  I send them a pdf that I want printed and they print it on their lovely copiers and I go pick it up and pay for it, easy peasy.

I just wanted a little bit of text to play with here, however, for a project I am pondering.  SO, I broke out the typewriter and typed my favorite Peter Beard quote.  Sometimes it works better if you let it rest for 24 hours, but I had to see if it would work at ALL!  SO after about 10 minutes and some vigorous rubbing with a bone folder I soaked it  and it came out VERY interesting
!
Before attaching to anything.  I didn't clean it up TOTALLY clean, since I liked the look with some of the original paper showing:


As close as I could get, so you could see the lovely effect that the typewriter type gives.  You would never get this effect with a computer and a printer. 


Attached to some bumpy paper that I gessoed with stone gray Daniel Smith Gesso, which is one of my favorite background colors:


My lovely little typewriter came with a red and black ribbon, so I retyped the quote in red, also.  I am going to wait for 24 hours or so before peeling that one.

Things that worry me:  This is an OLD ribbon. I have to look to see what is out there that could /can replace it if I get addicted to this effect.
And, if I can find a replacement will it be the same kind of ink? 

Falling in love with old things is not for the faint of heart. 

And for other quoteaholics out there, this is the quote, which is about the artist as a collector:

"Once the connoisseur of connections starts looking for the coded signals that hint of order beneath chaos, they are everywhere, like the shimmering squiggles of string theory, organizing them into a manageable matrix becomes essential for getting from one day to the next."

Anyone who has seen my studio knows how this resonates for me. 
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1 comment:

dorothypandorasbox said...

Looking good Jordi. :-)
Love the idea. I feel sure you should be able to get new ribbons for that machine.... possibly on eBay?